Fred Spofforth

Frederick Robert Spofforth, born on 9 September 1853 in Balmain, Sydney, and known as "The Demon Bowler," was a nineteenth-century Australian pace bowler. He made history as the first cricketer to take 50 Test wickets and the first to claim a Test hat-trick, which he achieved in 1879. Representing Australia in Tests from 1877 to 1887, he later moved to England and played for Derbyshire. In 2009, he was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame.

Spofforth’s father, Edward, was a Yorkshire-born director at the Bank of New South Wales; his mother was Anna McDonnell. He spent his early years in Hokianga, New Zealand, before receiving private education at Reverend John Pendrill’s Eglinton House on Glebe Road, with a brief stint at Sydney Grammar School. He then worked as a clerk for the Bank of New South Wales.

He began bowling underarm "lobs" but switched to overarm after watching England’s fast bowlers during their 1863/64 tour of the colonies, spending years perfecting the technique. He first gained attention in January 1874, playing for a New South Wales eighteen against W.G. Grace’s English eleven, taking two wickets for sixteen runs. A regular in intercolonial matches for New South Wales, he once made 25 batting at number four in a low-scoring December 1877 game—the highest score in either innings. After batting reasonably well on the 1878 and 1880 Australian tours of England, he focused almost entirely on bowling, building a fearsome reputation.

His Test debut came in Melbourne in 1877, the second match of the first-ever Test series, against James Lillywhite Jr.’s English side. He took three wickets in the first innings and one in the second, but England won by four wickets. He had skipped the First Test in protest over Jack Blackham’s selection as wicket-keeper ahead of his close friend Billy Murdoch.

Spofforth truly made his mark on 27 May 1878 at Lord’s, when the touring Australians dismissed the MCC twice in one day for just 33 and 19 runs. The visitors won by nine wickets, with Spofforth taking ten for 20, after clean-bowling Grace for a duck. Tom "Felix" Horan recalled Spofforth jumping in the air and shouting "Bowled! Bowled! Bowled!" after that delivery, later exclaiming in the dressing room, "Ain't I a demon?" Spofforth himself confirmed that this match earned him his lasting nickname, "the Demon." According to Plum Warner, this victory established Australian cricket’s fame permanently. Spofforth became the bowler English batsmen most feared, and he is credited with introducing the tactic of staring into a batsman’s eyes to intimidate them. On the 1878 tour, he took roughly 110 wickets at an average under 10½ runs, with a batting average of 13 from 28 innings.

His most devastating performance came at The Oval on 29 August 1882, in the match that birthed the Ashes. England needed only 85 runs in their second innings, but Spofforth rallied his team with the words, "Boys, this thing can be done," leading them to a seven-run victory with match figures of fourteen for ninety.

In the January 1879 Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, during Lord Harris’s England tour, Spofforth became the first to take a Test hat-trick, dismissing Vernon Royle, Francis MacKinnon, and Tom Emmett in three consecutive balls. This was part of a 13-wicket haul for 110 runs. That February, he also played for New South Wales against Lord Harris’s tourists in a game that sparked the Sydney riot of 1879.

Though not known for batting, he once top-scored in a Test from the number eleven position, hitting 50 against England in Melbourne in 1884–85; the next-highest Australian score in that match was 35. His final Test came in Sydney in January 1887, where he bowled twelve overs, conceded seventeen runs, and took one wicket as England won by 13 runs. He represented New South Wales from 1874 to 1885 and Victoria from 1885 to 1887.

Spofforth married Phillis Marsh Cadman in Breadsall, Derbyshire, in September 1886, at the end of an Australian tour. They initially lived in Australia, but in 1888 they returned to England, settling in Derbyshire near Phillis’s family. He took a job in his father-in-law’s tea company. Derbyshire County Cricket Club tried to get the County Cricket Council to let Spofforth play for them without the usual two-year residential qualification, but that effort was unsuccessful.